


Turbulence

by Inmyownidiom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Convergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Did I already mention that poe dameron is a hunk, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Implied Poe Dameron/Finn, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Pilots, Porn With Plot, Sexual Tension, Star Wars - Freeform, and he also plays guitar, because i literally couldn't resist, competitive poe dameron and jaina solo, implied reylo, jaina solo is a really tiny hunk, just bang already, poe dameron is a hunk, return to the smut train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-04-25 13:23:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14379543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inmyownidiom/pseuds/Inmyownidiom
Summary: Jaina Solo had everything figured out. Her mother was an ass-kicking general, her powers were pretty great (and she had much better control over them than her whining, now-evil brother), and she was the best pilot in the Resistance....Until Poe Kriffing Dameron showed up.Then things started to be a lot less figured out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the lovely Lady R, for getting what’s pretty much her dream job. You go, girl. (And also thanks for having the most complicated niche pairings that make my brain work really hard to mash totally different universes together just so two of the best Star Wars pilots can bone.)  
> For those blessed few of you who have stumbled upon this astoundingly niche pairing by accident, a little backstory. In the Star Wars books that were canon before the sequel trilogy nixed them all, Jaina Solo was one of the children of Han and Leia. (She had two brothers: her twin, Jacen, who flipped to the Dark Side, and Anakin.)  
> This fic takes gratuitous liberties with timelines and characters and major plots. It’s mostly the plot of Force Awakens, with some of Last Jedi tossed in for fun, and then a sprinkling of things I read about on Wookiepeedia. Prepare to suspend all disbelief in 3...2...1...

Jaina Solo hated celebrations, but she really despised this one.

Especially because it had loud music and louder, drunken speeches; and especially because it was happening right after an exhausting battle against the First Order that the Resistance had barely won; and especially because she would much rather be passed out in her bunk and dreaming of perfect runs in a brand-new shining ship that still smelled like fresh electronics and polished metal.

But above all else, Jaina despised this celebration especially, _especially_ , because it had Poe Kriffing Dameron. That was his middle name, she was sure of it. Just try and contradict her. Just _try_.

She could see him across the hangar, dancing and snapping his fingers, throwing his head back and laughing, bumping his hip against some other pilot. He was a surprisingly good dancer: his movements were fluid and easy, and exactly the opposite of the uncomfortable stiffness that would be Jaina were she to try and make the same motions. Almost as if Dameron knew she was looking at him, he turned to her and made a ‘Come on over!’ gesture with an arm.

Jaina downed the drink in her cup instead and nearly choked. Wherever the alcohol had come from, it tasted like it had been made very recently, most likely out of old vegetables, extra fuel, and a sock. If she had been any closer to a flame, her breath would have caught on fire. Her shoulders shuddered involuntarily. It was a far cry from the smooth Corellian whiskey that so often graced the cabinets of her father’s living spaces. Jaina would admit that she had been a little spoiled.

But booze was still booze, though some brews were more ignitable than others. She ladled another scoop of the toxic concoction into her dented aluminum cup and tried not to think too much about it, although since it would be her third serving, thinking was thankfully not easy at the moment.

Glancing back at the crowd of dancers, her eyes landed on an amused Poe, who shot her a cocky grin and winked, then mimed raising a glass to his lips and wiggled his eyebrows. He’d undoubtedly seen her splutter around her drink.

Asshole.

Jaina took another sip and turned away from him, deciding to look anywhere but in his direction. She was definitely impressed by how a handful of scrappy rebels had transformed a loading dock into a thriving party. It wasn’t a glamorous dance hall, but when you’re always on the run, you have to make do. The hangar was strewn with makeshift decorations: colorful wires wrapped around the posts that edged the landing pads; strobing flashes from emergency lights whose controls someone had overridden; and a length of toilet tissue draped over an X-wing that seemed to be serving as some sort of hookup corner, if the tangles of various limbs indicated anything, and they all seemed to be having a grand time.

Whatever. Jaina wasn’t jealous. Not at all. She didn’t want any part of that. Not the sharp tingle of arousal, or that slick glide of skin against skin, or even the heady scent of male lust and sweat, and she definitely didn’t want that feeling of being so close to someone that breath mingled in the scant distance between their mouths...

All right, _fine_.

She was jealous.

The alcohol in her cup didn’t burn quite as much as it had before. Jaina couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing, but then she glanced up to see that Poe was still making faces at her, so she settled on it being a good thing.

The thudding base of the music dimmed, and the sound of a finger tapping a mic echoed through the hangar.

“I’d like your attention, for a few moments,” said a woman’s voice, low and graveled. Conversations and laughter faded as people turned to face the speaker.

Leia stood on a shipping crate in front of a fighter and held what looked like the comm from a freighter. She tapped her improvised microphone again.

“Just a few moments,” the general repeated, “and then you can return to your preferred methods of debauchery.”

Laughter rippled through the hangar. Jaina looked down into her empty cup and frowned, eyeing the ladle and gauging the roiling of her stomach. She knew her mother’s speeches almost as well as she knew the wiring attachments for a flight stabilizer.

First would come the thanks. _You all are the reason we are here right now_ , or other words to that effect. Then a summary of what had been accomplished. Then a statement of what still needed to be done. Then a reminder that even though they had won this battle…

“...the war will rage on,” Leia continued, as if reading from the script in Jaina’s head.

And then, the moment of silence for those who were lost. Jaina listened to the names. She hadn’t known any of them well, this time, but she couldn’t bring herself to be thankful for that.

The alcohol in her veins was turning into a sluggish fog.

Despite the chaos of the battle, despite the near-hits and the frantic races against explosions and missiles, she hadn’t seen Ben’s ship. And for that, at least, she could be thankful.

Wait, oops, not _Ben_ \--Kylo Bland, or whatever the fuck he called himself these days. She couldn’t express her relief that their father wasn’t around to see the bullshit her little brother was pulling; the last time she had heard from Han, he was off somewhere in the Anthan system smuggling...something. Jaina couldn’t be bothered to remember. Or care.

Maybe if Han had been around more, and maybe if Leia hadn’t been so caught up in her duties, then they could have paid attention to the little dark spot festering in their home. And maybe he wouldn’t have been so drawn to the rising order.

Not that Jaina was guiltless. She had been training with Uncle Luke, wrapped up in her studies and the blinding importance of who she felt she needed to become that she hadn’t even been able to be the proper older sister and sit down for one kriffing minute and listen to him. Would it have helped? Would he have even told her anything? Was there any hope for him now?

As she sat in the creaking chair and half-listened to her mother inspire a room filled with rebels, she could picture Ben as he used to be: bright, curious eyes; ears that he would never really grow into that stuck out of a mop of scruffy hair; his hands pawing at her arm as he asked to sit next to her and listen to stories of far-off battles and foiled plans of destruction.

“Not now, Ben,” she had always said. “Not now.”

Jaina swallowed the burning sensation that fought up her throat and tamped it down as deep as possible. She couldn’t let these emotions get the better of her like this. She had trained with the last Jedi master. The Force ran thick in her blood. Guilt and fear and loss were the domain of her fallen brother, not of herself. She would suppress those useless feelings that scalded her esophagus and churned her stomach and…

Oh gods, she thought around more churning.

Maybe she’d drunk enough for one night.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that girl, Rey, hovering along the wall. Jaina focused intently on her cup and hoped that this celebration would be too loud for any conversation.

The young scavenger had developed the habit of cornering her to ask about the Force, and more than once, had practically begged Jaina to train her.

The situation was much too reminiscent of the times when her brother had greeted her with a short hug followed by swarms of questions; she couldn’t bring herself to be reminded of anything from those days.

‘Isn’t there someone else who can teach you?’ Jaina had said once to Rey. The girl had blushed and looked panicked, but at least hadn’t pestered Jaina for a few days afterwards.

It had gotten much worse since Rey’s return from the First Order flasghip a month or so ago. There had been a few whispers about the girl having a run-in with Ben, and Jaina would have asked, but there was something about Rey that was slightly off-putting. Mostly, it was that she would talk to the air when she thought she was alone in a room. Not the mumblings of someone wondering where they left a shoe, but highly animated conversations, lectures, and even arguments with a wall.

An odd bird, that one.

Her mother’s voice pulled Jaina back from her musings.

“...which, of course, wouldn’t have been possible without the best pilot in the galaxy.”

Jaina sat up straighter. Leia had never gushed like this before. Jaina knew that her mother was proud of her talent, and had said so on many occasions, but never had the words ‘best’ been coupled with ‘in the galaxy.’

Elation swelled in her chest.

Leia laughed into her mic. “Pardon me, I meant the best _pilots_ in the galaxy. To Jaina, and to Poe!” She lifted a cup in a toast that everyone copied, save for Jaina.

 _What_?

Jaina clenched her hands into painful fists even as the room exploded into claps and cheers, then dissolved back underneath the thud of music and celebration.

Really? Fucking _POE?_

Yeah, so what if he had been flying since he was six. Jaina had learned to fly when she was still in diapers. Not very far, or very fast, but she had moved a twelve-ton spaceship from one point on the landing pad to another point on the landing pad without so much as a scuff mark. If _that_ didn’t matter, then she didn’t know what did.

The point was that Jaina could fly circles around Poe with her eyes closed and her targeting computer rammed straight up his ass. To be shoved into the same category as him made an itch claw its way through her body.

“Hey,” a voice said somewhere above her.

Jaina jerked her head up and immediately frowned.

“What do you want?”

Poe snorted, his thick eyebrows soaring high onto his forehead. “I wanted to congratulate you, but now I think I’ve come at a bad time.”

You _always_ come at a bad time, Jaina thought. The phrase gave her pause, and sort of made her want to giggle, but she couldn’t make out the reason. And why was she blinking so slowly? And _what_ had been in that alcohol?

“You okay?”

Ugh, the bastard looked concerned now. It was all over his face, and radiated from his eyes, which Jaina realized were very brown. For some reason, she had always thought they were black. But, no. They were the color of rich chocolate, or the bark in an ancient forest, or--

“Really old candy,” Jaina finished out loud.

Poe looked at her as if he was trying to figure out how hard she would punch him if he laughed.

He sunk down onto a knee in front of her so they were at the same level. She blinked at him.

“Mom’s lying,” Jaina said and waggled her cup in his face. “I’m better than you.”

Poe rolled his eyes, and then looked at the cup she held.

“Kriff, Jaina, what did you _do_ ?” His hands darted out to grab the fingers that were wrapped around the aluminum--well, _once_ it had been a cup, but now it was just a mangled wreck of sharp metal and blood.

“Oh,” she said. When she had clenched her fists earlier, when Leia had made that obnoxious announcement, Jaina must have forgotten what she was holding. Drunken forgetfulness combined with Force-assisted strength didn’t seem to be a healthy combination. Jaina filed that one away in the ‘Lessons Already Learned But Quickly Forgotten’ cabinet.

Her hand wasn’t that bad, she saw as Poe removed the cup and set it gingerly on the ground beside her. A few nicks and scrapes across her palm and one deeper gouge in the pad of her thumb. Nothing a dollop of antiseptic, a tetanus patch, and a bit of bacta wouldn’t fix.

“Come on,” Poe said and held out a palm to help her to her feet. “I’ll take you to the med bay.”

“Oh, gallant Poe!” Jaina said in a voice heavy with sarcasm and batted her eyelashes. “How kind of you to save me from the perilous cup.”

“I’m trying to help you!” Poe snapped, and propped his fists on his hips. He’d gone without his jacket for the party, and the position of his arms made his shirt stretch taut across the muscles on his chest.

“I’m fine,” Jaina said with a sneer and surged up. When the room lurched under her feet and it seemed like her entire body roiled in objection, she discovered that perhaps she wasn’t fine. The hangar floor rushed towards her, but then a set of strong arms wrapped around her torso and brought it much too close to his torso.

He even _smelled_ good, damn him. Like some mix of cedar and dirt and male and the tiniest hint of grease and somehow it made her mouth water.

Jaina flapped her unbloodied hand against him and glowered. “I’m...s’fine!”

His face was inches from her own. He leaned down, and she could see every dot of stubble on his chin and cheeks and above his lips, and _kriff,_  were his eyelashes long. Why was she noticing all of this right now?

Poe gave her a hard look. “You need to go to the med bay,” he said, and without so much as a ‘Hold on!’ he hoisted her over his shoulder and started for the door.

“The FUCK--” Jaina shrieked.

“You need to sober up, Jaina,” Poe shouted over her. He walked steadily under her weight, and yeah, even if she was on the shorter side of ‘tiny,’ she wasn’t made out of paper, so she had to be at least a little bit impressed by it.

Poe pressed an arm down over her legs when she started to kick them.

“Two cups of that swill would knock a normal-sized person out flat and give them the hangover of the century when they wake up,” he said. “How many have you had?”

Six, but Poe didn’t need to know that. It would only make him more smug. The strength of the drink would explain all of her ridiculous thoughts, however. Poe wasn’t becoming more alluring; the liquor was just tweaking her brain. _She_ didn’t enjoy the pressure of his arm around her legs, or the proximity of his face to her hip, or the way she could feel the muscles in his shoulder against her stomach. It was the alcohol. What a relief.

The mic buzzed and Jaina lifted her suddenly unwieldy head to see her mother looking in their direction.

“Careful with my daughter, Dameron,” Leia called out. “If you drop her, I’ll space you.”

Jaina tried to glare daggers, but probably only succeeded in glaring cooked noodles.

“I’ll hold on tight, General,” Poe shouted back. “But if I drop her, I bet she’s gonna space me first.”

Laughter rattled Jaina’s eardrums.

“Get her, Poe,” someone shouted as Jaina’s head flopped against Poe’s back. Jaina flipped them off, but since she had no idea who said it, she ended up flipping off the room, which felt even better.

The moment the hangar door closed behind them, the music cut completely. The echoing silence felt like balm against Jaina’s skull.

Poe patted the back of her thigh. “We’ll get you fixed up quick, Solo.”

“I’m fine,” Jaina snarled, and she could almost hear Poe rolling his eyes. “Let me down, and I’ll show you.”

“No. If I let you down, you’re going to fall down, and then your mother’s gonna space me. I don’t wanna get spaced.”

Jaina fumed. “If you don’t put me down, I’ll...I’ll…”

“What, you’ll bleed on me?” Poe scoffed.

“Yep!”

Don’t ever let it be said that Poe Dameron didn’t occasionally have a grand idea. Ignoring the pain, she swung her injured palm against his ass, and delighted in his surprised grunt. It was a great idea, in theory, to hold her palm against the seat of his pants in order to let as much blood seep into the fabric, but in practice, it turned out to be a mistake. She could feel the round, solid muscles of his hindquarters move and flex under her palm every time he stepped.

Jaina snatched her hand away from Poe’s behind as if it had burned her. Of course Poe Kriffing Dameron would have an excellent ass. It wasn’t Jaina thinking this, though. It was the alcohol. And the alcohol approved.

Poe jostled her on his shoulder and she grabbed a handful of his shirt to try and steady herself, and ended up lifting the light linen higher on his back. Underneath, she caught a glimpse of smooth, tanned skin. Jaina practically shoved the shirt back in place.

“You’re being a child about this, Jaina.”

“Oh, seriously? More child references?” Jaina was pushing 5’1”. She knew this. She couldn’t go through all her life and _not_ know it. But...really, Poe? He was typically more creative in his insults, especially considering that she was older than him by over a year.

Poe let out a heavy sigh. She could feel the warmth of it brush her thigh through her pants and she swallowed--tricky, considering the circumstances.

“Only because your maturity matches your height,” Poe said.

Jaina made a move to knee him in the chest but he caught her leg before she could draw it back far enough and pinned it in place.

“How’s your neck, Poe?” Jaina said sweetly.

“What?”

“It must really hurt, having to hold up that gigantic ego all the time.”

He let out a huff and then stayed silent.

“You’ve got blood on your butt,” Jaina said after a moment.

Poe’s step faltered. “Thanks for that,” he muttered.

“It was your idea.”

His fingers tightened on her thigh and she wondered for a moment if he was going to reciprocate--his palm landing on her ass, but without the blood--and why did that thought make her all sorts of tingly?

The alcohol.

Yep, that was it.

They reached the empty med bay. Poe punched a light switch and tipped Jaina onto a table, then rummaged in a cabinet. One side of his pants had a splotchy, red stain. Even through the sludge of her inebriation, she felt a twinge of guilt. Not strong enough to apologize, though, since the asshole had still slung her over his shoulder like a sack of spare parts.

He came back with a bundle of packages. His touch was gentle as he took her injured fingers and cleaned them with a wad of gauze.

It was then that she realized, with a start, that this was the first time they had ever been alone together. In the New Republic, they had each commanded their own squadrons, which meant that even though Jaina had heard of Poe and his many exploits (and undoubtedly he had heard of her own), she hadn’t ever had the opportunity to relax in a break room or a med bay and chat with him. When her mother had started the Resistance, Jaina had abandoned the New Republic immediately. Broken and saddened by her brother’s betrayal, she had gone to support her mother as well as herself, and what better way to do so than plot against the quaking superpower that grew within the stars.

Six months back, Poe had come to the Resistance on Leia’s insistence, and as the saying went, the rest was history. Competitive, argumentative, sometimes infuriating history.

Jaina had never figured out what exactly it was about Poe that irritated her so much, but whenever she was around him, she felt a simmering tension that tightened her muscles and zinged her nerves. It was so much worse right now in the med bay, since she didn’t have anything to distract her from his proximity, or the sounds of his slow, even breathing, or the way his hair curled down to brush the shell of his ear.

He’d rolled his sleeves up to the elbows. Jaina marveled at the way the thick cords of muscle moved along his forearms, and the dark hair there made her wonder about the rest of his body. Did he have hair on his chest? Or was there simply a teasing line of it that trailed down into his pants from his stomach?

Oh, too much drink.

She’d had far too much to drink.

“I could have done this on my own,” Jaina said as Poe applied a smear of bacta to her palm.

He flicked a disbelieving glance at her. “I didn’t think you could get here by yourself.”

“I would have been fine,” she said as she watched his ministrations.

Hands were hands, Jaina had always thought. They were very useful for a great number of things, like flying and repairing and eating, but they were essentially extra-dexterous paws. But now, looking at the way that Poe’s calloused and nimble fingers brushed ever so lightly across her skin as he applied the bacta, and how large they seemed next to hers as he held and cradled her injured self in a way that was so breathtakingly tender, she admitted that hands could be a little bit sexy.

“You’re not exactly a high-functioning drunk.” Poe smirked at her as he secured the end of the bandage.

“I am the most functioning drunk.” Jaina lifted her head proudly.

Poe’s lips wrestled with a laugh and twin, perfect dimples creased his cheeks. “You can hardly talk, and last time you were on your feet, you weren’t great at standing.”

“That’s because I didn’t want to stand.” She looked down and saw that he was still rubbing the end of the bandage, even though it was already secured. His tan skin next to hers made her own skin seem that much more pale.

The smirk returned. “So then you wanted to fall into my arms?”

Fuck, where was _this_ going? “Kr-Kriff off,” Jaina said. Her voice wasn’t nearly as steady as she wanted it to be, and she pinned that on the strength of the drink, since the rest of her body had stopped following the commands of her brain.

Poe gave a soft laugh, then went to a different cabinet and returned with a small vial filled with a dark blue liquid. He twisted off the lid and handed it to her. When her arm barely lifted to take it and the attempt made her sway on the table, he brought it to her lips himself.

“It’s to avoid the oncoming alcohol poisoning,” he said as Jaina sniffed. It smelled strong and bitter, but it also didn’t smell like alcohol. Which was good, in theory.

With a deep breath, Jaina swallowed the vial in a single shot. If the earlier drinks had burned her throat going down, this utterly destroyed it. She gagged and shuddered against the blinding pain.

“What...the _fuck_ did you...give me?” Jaina croaked. She doubled over as her head spun and then started to pound like an army of AT-ATs were stomping through it.

“I’m sorry,” Poe said and patted her shoulder. “You’ll thank me later, I promise.”

Little by little, the pounding faded and her stomach settled. Jaina lifted her head cautiously at first. The floor was still and the table on which she sat wasn’t moving. She felt...normal. Sober. Awake. And grateful. It must have been an detoxifying serum. Maybe Poe wasn’t _that_ much of an asshole.

“Gods,” she said, “where was that all my life?”

“Don’t get too excited,” Poe said. “It’s not quite over yet.”

Why was he holding a bucket? Well, whatever, it felt over. Jaina stretched her arms over her head.

“That was terrible,” she groaned. “I’m never doing that again.”

“Which ‘that’ are you talking about?” Poe lifted an eyebrow. “Sulking instead of celebrating, drinking yourself under the table, slicing up your hand, smearing blood on my new pants, or lobbing unwarranted insults at me?” He ticked off each point on a finger.

Okay, so he _was_ that much of an asshole.

“The drinking,” she said. “And only the drinking.”

Poe looked pensively between her and the bucket he held, then set the bucket on the floor and went about gathering torn packages and empty wrappers.

“You know what I think?” he said as he tossed the trash into a small wall compactor.

Jaina fought an eye roll. “Instill me with your wisdom, oh wise one.”

Poe turned back to her, hands on his hips. It was his favorite pose. Probably because he knew how it made his chest look underneath that snug shirt.

“I think that if you stopped arguing with me for one second, your head would explode.”

Jaina let out an undignified snort. “It would take much longer than a single second.”

Poe threw up his arms as if to say, ‘See?’

She had to admit that despite everything--all of his taunts and jibes and the fact that he’d tossed her over his shoulder like a barbarian--he _had_ helped her.

“Thank you,” Jaina said reluctantly.

Poe’s head snapped up and he sucked in an overly dramatic gasp, then began to pat himself all over.

“Gods!” he said. “Is this...am I...is this a dream?” He made a show of pinching his arm. “Did Jaina Solo just _express gratitude_ ? To...to _me_?”

Jaina gritted her teeth and clenched her fists at his theatrics.

“Fine, I’ll take it back,” she snarled, and Poe shook a finger at her.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “You were just going to owe me new pants, but being in my debt is so-o-o much better.”

He was _such_ an ass. Every time he opened his mouth, she felt this tension bubbling up inside of her, and it made her want to punch him, or kick his droid--actually, no, she couldn’t possibly do that, because BB-8 was a sweetie, and she would break her foot.

Poe was coming over to her now, with that look on his face she knew so very, very well: it was as if a smirk had bathed in a vat of pure smugness. He stopped right before his hips reached her knees and canted his head slightly to one side. His eyes flicked down to her lips in a motion so brief that she almost missed it.

What was happening? Jaina took a slow breath to steady the sudden thud of her heart and the dizzying scent of him filled her lungs. He was a rebel who lived without running water for weeks at a time; a pilot who sweat in a cramped cockpit until his flight suit could nearly stand up on its own; and an adult man. Added together, that shouldn’t have resulted in anything appealing, yet somehow Poe managed to smell like a kriffing fantasy.

When he spoke, his voice seemed to drag along her skin.

“Face it, Solo, you owe me. Big.”

Oh, she wanted him to shut up. To stop with the snappy comebacks and the quips and the jibes. She wanted to stuff a handful of gauze in his mouth; wanted to shove his face between her thighs and make that quick tongue do something useful for once.

Jaina jerked back as if the thought had slapped her.

Where the FUCK had _that_ come from? It must have been the alcohol.

Because she _hated_ Poe. She hated his glossy, tousled hair, and his endless brown eyes, and the uneven bridge of his nose, and his permanently raised eyebrow. She hated his flight skills and his strength in battle and his confidence and his shining moments of selflessness. And she really hated those bold, firm lips, even now with their fading smirk.

Poe retreated a step, shuffled a hand through his hair and grimaced. “Wow, sorry, that sounded a lot less creepy in my head.”

Jaina couldn’t think of anything to say, because she was in the middle of realizing that it _couldn’t_ have been the alcohol, since it had all been artificially processed out of her bloodstream. And if it hadn’t been the alcohol, then it must mean that she’d actually…

She actually wanted…

Her brain roiled and thrashed about in her skull. Then her stomach joined it. And then, she discovered the reason why Poe had been holding a bucket.

To his credit, he only sighed and said, “Now you _definitely_ owe me new pants.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A game of holo-pong gets a little out of hand.

Poe Dameron loved celebrations, but he had absolutely adored _that_ one.

Especially because it had boasted loud music and louder, drunken speeches; and especially because it had been the perfect end to an exhausting battle against the First Order that the Resistance had actually _won_ ; and especially because it had been an excellent excuse to dance and shmooze and drink and laugh.

And he had loved that celebration especially because of a certain tiny, sullen brunette. A tiny, sullen brunette on whom he had been nursing a crush since he joined the Resistance, who also happened to be the daughter of his boss...and who was also the same tiny, sullen brunette who had nearly drunk herself into a coma rather than have one single dance with him.

It stung a bit, sure, but Poe didn’t want to let himself linger too much on that part.

“Agh!”

Finn’s shout pulled Poe’s attention to the lounge and the game of holo-pong that played out in front of him. At the moment, Finn’s coordination matched someone with feet instead of hands. Finn faced off against Rey, who gripped the plastic paddle like it was a weapon and focused on the table and the holo-ball as if they held hidden secrets that only intense staring could reveal. Finn had just made a dive for the ball and instead clipped his stomach with the edge of the table.

“You’re doing great, buddy,” Poe called out.

Jess Pava lay draped over the beaten chair next to Poe, and when she squawked out a laugh, he smacked her arm.

“What?” she hissed at him. “It was hilarious.”

“Don’t be an ass,” he hissed back as Jess scoffed and tipped her head against the armrest.

“Go, Finn, go! You’re a champion!” Rose said from one of the chairs that surrounded the table. Ever the supportive optimist. She’d been good for Finn, and for once, Poe found himself glad that a fling hadn’t developed into a more substantial relationship. He and Finn had had themselves a fun time, yet the ending of that had opened the door for something deeper.

_Must be nice._

His eyes flicked to a chair in the corner, and to the tiny, sullen brunette who sat intently fiddling with the cluster of ship electronics in her hands. She’d pulled her hair into a loose braid and locks the color of warm chestnuts fell against her neck.

It wasn’t often that so few people filled the lounge; for the past half an hour, Poe, Jess, and Rose had watched the flailing Finn ‘battle’ the obsessive Rey while Jaina focused on her task and occasionally glanced up to flash a minute smile at the hijinks.

Like any of the days following a heavy battle, this one had been quiet; not only because the First Order had to retreat and lick its wounds, but also because most of the Resistance was hungover and exhausted. Poe almost enjoyed the days following a battle as much as he enjoyed the battles themselves. Quiet, relaxed affairs, filled with eating and lazing and the occasional bout of training. Mostly lazing, though.

Rey gave the holo-ball a vicious thwack with her paddle and sent it flying at Jaina. Poe tensed and opened his mouth to shout a warning, forgetting for a moment that the ball would just pass through any surface other than the table. Without looking up from her lap, Jaina held up a palm and the ball froze in mid-air. She tensed her fingers and it flew back at the table.

He’d admit it freely. The image of Jaina Solo, in her turned-down blazing orange flight suit and her faded tank top, not even moving her gaze from the ship computer she was fixing as she controlled the universe around her with the barest flex of her fingers, was a damn sexy image, and one that would be forever singed into his memories.  

Finn made a move to smack the holo-ball as it bounced at his paddle, and at the last moment, his arm twitched out of the way.

“Come _on_ , Rey!” he whined. “I told you, using the Force counts as cheating.”

“That wasn’t me.”

Poe held back a guffaw. Although Rey was be an extraordinary Force-wielder, she was an absolutely terrible liar.

An elbow nudged his upper arm. He turned to see Jess leveling a stare at him.

“Yes, Jessika?”

“How’d it go last night?” she whispered and nudged him again, her brows dancing on her forehead.

Poe sent an alarmed glance at Jaina. She seemed oblivious to any conversation outside of what happened in her fascinating head.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask you louder,” Jess said in a slightly raised whisper.

This was why he shouldn’t talk to Jess. About anything. She didn’t just rub it in his face, she took whole handfuls of his secrets and pelted him with them until he gave her more. Weren’t there rules about this sort of thing? Rules that focused on banned torture techniques, or crimes against humanity?

“Nothing happened,” Poe growled at her.

Jess shuffled in her chair so she faced him and gave him a look of utter disbelief.

“You tossed her over your kriffing shoulder and stormed out into an empty hallway, and you want me to believe that _nothing happened_?”

“Yes.”

“So something happened?”

Poe dragged a hand down his face. “Yes, I want you to believe that nothing happened. Because _nothing happened_.”

“Oh.” Jess frowned. “Why not?”

One deep breath, and then another. “I don’t know, Jessika.” More than once, he had thought that a tension had been building between himself and Jaina in the med bay. The way her breath had hitched as he had bandaged her hand was not the kind of hitching that came before a punch; it was the kind that usually came before a wonderfully passionate kiss. But she had been plastered out of her mind at the time, so he didn’t count it for much at all.

“Probably because she hates my guts.”

“More like you hate her guts.” Jess snorted. “Because you know what they contain.”

Kriffing shit, why, _why_ did he tell her about the vomiting? Why did he tell her _anything_? Poe heaved another sigh.

“You know, you’re not funny.”

Jess leaned back in her chair. “You’re right. I’m hilarious.”

An eye roll had never been this dramatic. The tiny muscles around his eyeballs actually strained with the exertion of it.

“Why didn’t anything happen?” Jess pressed.

“I told you, because she--”

It was Jess’s turn to exercise her eye-roll muscles. “She doesn’t hate you, Poe. Any idiot could see that.”

Poe leaned in. “What? What do you mean?”

A knowing smirk grew on Jess’s face, but before she could say anything, Finn shouted again, and the sound of a body rattling the table echoed around the small lounge. Poe twisted around, intending to send Finn a few more words of encouragement, then paused at what he saw.

Since he had last looked over, a noticeable change had come over Rey. Where before she had been intent on the game, now she kept looking over her shoulder at the nearby corner, and her motions had become twitchy and uncharacteristically spastic.

Finn seemed to have noticed as well.

“You okay?” Finn said.

Rey didn’t seem to hear him. “Not now,” she spat at the corner. “And don’t tell me you ran out of shirts again, because really, this is getting...” She suddenly realized that everyone was watching her, and froze.

“I...I have to...um…” she stammered, then threw her paddle onto the table and bolted from the room.

“Rey, wait!” Finn tossed down his own paddle and ran after her, followed shortly by Rose.

“Well, that was weird,” Jess said to the silence.

Poe agreed. When Rey had joined them a little over a month ago, she had seemed relatively normal. At least, ‘normal’ by the Resistance’s standards, i.e. a little socially awkward, bizarrely talented for her background, and tending not to converse with the air.

“What was she saying about shirts?” Poe said.

Jess shrugged as if she didn’t much care. Her eyes darted between Poe and the remaining person in the room, who had set the tiny computer in her lap and was looking at Rey’s corner with an odd mix of confusion and concentration.

“Jess…” Poe laced the word with warning. _Please don’t do whatever you’re about to do._

“Why would she even be _in_ here?” Jess said in a barely-audible whisper. “Tell me that, Poe.”

True, Jaina had her quarters and a thousand other places in which she could have worked on her mechanical project, but this room had...well...better lighting? Comfier chairs? A holo-pong table with the bad habit of shorting out in the middle of plays?

All of those reasons sounded false as he mentally listed them. So then, perhaps Jess had a point.

His friend stretched with a loud grunt and re-tied her black hair into a tail with an old piece of wire.

“I gotta go see to my droid,” Jess said with excessive volume, then quickly stood and trotted from the room.

So now it was just him and Jaina, alone in a room. Again.

She hadn’t seemed to realize this, though, since she was still staring at the corner.

“See something?” Poe asked, then cursed himself as she nearly jumped out of her chair.

“I…” Jaina cleared her throat. “I just felt…” She glanced back at the corner and then shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s gone now, though.”

He never claimed to understand the Force, or the innumerable ways it could fuck with someone’s mind. What little he had discovered told him that it was bothering Jaina right now. So he offered what usually helped him: a distraction.

Poe shrugged out of his jacket then stood and snatched a paddle from the table. “Wanna play?”

“What?” Did a blush start to stain her cheeks, or was that his imagination?

He waggled the paddle, and jerked his head towards the second paddle.

“Oh,” she said. “I’ll pass.”

“Does your hand still hurt?” The little scrapes should have been healed by now, but that gouge on her thumb probably still stung a fair amount.

Jaina looked up at him with a conspiratorial smile. “The hand’s fine. It just wouldn’t be much of a game, since I would beat you immediately.”

Poe touched a button on the underside of the table and the little holo-ball fizzled into existence. He bounced it a few times on the surface.

“Then come on, Solo, show me  my place.”

She appeared to think about it for a moment, then set the computer piece gently on the chair beside her and came over to the table.

“What would your place be, Dameron?” The paddle spun in her hand and she stretched her arms. Poe tried not to get distracted by the slope of her bare shoulders and the shifting muscles under her pale skin.

“Wherever you want to put me, Solo,” he said.

Jaina choked and her cheeks flamed even more. It had been an innocuous enough statement, he’d thought, and he made a valiant attempt not to overanalyze it, instead sending the ball across the table.

Jaina hit it back to him in a graceful arc. Her movements were calculated and graceful, without an ounce of wasted effort.

If Leia hadn’t told him that Kylo Ren was Jaina’s brother, he would have had a hard time believing it. Not only because of their height (the difference of which prompted several questions about genetics), but because of their temperaments; where the new leader of the First Order was a crackling mess of unrestrained rage and leftover teenage petulance, Jaina was a calm and collected orb of poise and power. It was like comparing an erupting volcano to a fathomless sea. Unless, of course, that sea had been drinking. Or was angry.

As Poe knocked the ball across the table, he wished that he was better with metaphors.

He’d only ever seen Jaina lose her cool once before last night, and it was when she had a heated argument with a slacking pilot. It had been soon after he had joined the Resistance. He’d turned a corner to see her ripping the pilot a new one for not following through on orders, and he couldn’t _not_ hover by and watch. Jaina had been filled with righteous fury that shook her whole frame (what little of it there was). It had been spectacular.

He didn’t want to say that a drunk Jaina was any less spectacular, but it was wonderful on a different level. All of the barriers of ‘Jedi’ and ‘leader’ and ‘General’s daughter’ disintegrated until only the snarky, fiery center remained. Maybe that was why he was always trying to rile her up. He admitted to himself that he might be a terrible man.

Ah well. Nothing much to do about it now.

Thinking about Jaina drinking reminded him of the consequences of her drinking.

“Thanks for the pants,” he said to her. This morning, he had emerged from his quarters to find a new pair of pants beside his door, crisply folded and note-less.

Jaina lifted her shoulder in an embarrassed shrug. “It was the least I could do. If you got a bodily fluid on me, I’d hope you would do the same.”

That would depend on the type of bodily fluid, as he could think of exactly one that he would be absolutely delighted to--

 _Fucking shit, Dameron. What is WRONG with you?_ One did not simply think about cum in the same thought as the daughter of the general of the Resistance. It was not done. He was quite certain that Leia would skin him alive, and _then_ space him if she had any inkling of what happened inside his head.

The holo-ball soared past Poe’s paddle and he mentally slapped himself.

“Something on your mind, Poe?” Jaina said, her honeyed words doing nothing to hide their bite.  

 _Yes._ “No.”

He smacked the ball a little too hard and the normally controlled Jaina lunged sideways to strike it. The motion made her arms tense and her breasts bounce every so slightly underneath her top. Poe had felt those breasts last night, pressed right up against his back, and he wondered how they would feel in his hands, in his mouth, and how would they look, with--

 _FUCK. NO._ She was the daughter. Of his general. And he would get spaced.

The words tore through his head like circling TIE fighters.

_Daughter._

_General._

_Spaced._

_Breasts._

The holo-ball crackled as it flew past his ear.

“Come on, Poe,” Jaina said. “It’s like you’re not even trying.”

“Oh, I’m definitely trying,” Poe muttered under his breath.

Jaina twirled her paddle and hit a perfect serve. “Then I’ll add pong to the list of ‘Why Jaina is Better than Poe’.”

Poe caught the ball in one hand. “You have a list?” he blurted.

Jaina stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Flying, fighting, holo-pong, wielding the power of the universe…”

“Now, hold on.” Poe sent the ball to her with a swift smack. “I’m excellent at fighting.”

“You’re rash, your technique is flailing, and you win purely by luck.”

Poe cursed as she scored a point.

“My apologies if I didn’t go to Jedi summer camp. I make do with what I got.”

Jaina served perfectly again, her lips pursed in concentration. How was it possible that she could make him feel simultaneously frustrated and aroused? Was this something wrong on his end? Most likely.

“You’re a better marksman,” Jaina said as if admitting a terrible truth, “though I’ve got you beat with a saber---”

“Yeah, yeah,” Poe interrupted. “You’ve got your lightsaber and I’ve got my blaster, and we both know that if we switched, we’d have about four fingers and a leg missing between the two of us in a matter of minutes.”

“You’d be missing the leg,” Jaina said without a beat.

“And you’d be missing the fingers.”

Then she laughed. Not a loud laugh, or a sustained laugh, but a slight chuckle that sent warm currents racing along his skin. He couldn’t help a smile, at the feeling, and at her.

Jaina didn’t look away. She didn’t scowl. Her eyes seemed to darken and she licked her lips, and Poe found himself remembering how she had looked at him last night.

She...she _couldn’t_ hate him, right? People didn’t stare at the lips of people they hated. Their pupils didn’t dilate, their breath didn’t come faster, their skin didn’t turn rosy and flushed.

And this was a lot of eye contact happening right now. Like, a _lot_. He may have been across a regulation eight-foot holo-pong table from Jaina, yet he had never felt closer to her.

They both started as the ball fizzled out with a sharp zap.

Poe coughed and pressed the button for another ball. He wasn’t quite ready to face the avalanche of thoughts that threatened to burst into his skull.

“You want to keep playing?” Jaina asked, and Poe decided to ignore the incredulity in her tone.

“Yeah,” he said. “I gotta earn my dignity back somehow.”

“What dignity?” She batted her eyelashes.

Poe narrowed his eyes. “If you’ll look down, you’ll see you’re standing on it.” He readied his paddle as Jaina lay her own on the table.

There was a brief moment where he saw in her face that she was wrestling with some decision, and it was like watching a flash of lightning--quick, bright, and somewhat dangerous. When it was over, he found that a little coil of anticipation tensed in the pit of his stomach.

Jaina leaned forward, hands flat on the table, and parted her lips. Her arms pressed together so that they pushed a valley between her breasts. Poe couldn’t think. He had lost the power for speech. The holo-ball fell out of his fingers, disappeared through the floor, and then reappeared on the table with another zap. He didn’t even look at it. Somehow, their roles had swapped so that she was the teaser and he was the one that was flustered. How in the earthly hells had _that_ happened?

With a devious smile, Jaina slightly lifted her leg and stomped on the ground, miming the action of grinding his dignity beneath her bootheel.

He lifted a palm to his chest in mock pain, but inside, he reeled. Poe was _never_ the flustered party. This ridiculous, small woman had done the impossible. It was like he didn’t know her anymore. Gods, this was so exciting.

Jaina Force-pulled the ball to her and smacked it to Poe.

“I thought you said you wanted to keep playing?” she said when he made no moves to hit it.

“I…” _Fuck, Poe,_ he thought to his racing heart and his tingling nethers. _Pull it together._

The holo-ball soared through the air and into her hand once more. She lifted her chin.

“It’s probably the best for your dignity,” she said with a saucy smile. “I’d probably just keep spanking you, anyway.”

Aha! An opening, thank the stars.

Poe tilted his head and gave her his cockiest of grins. “How did you know that’s what I like?”

He reveled in the deep flush that crept up from the collar of her tank top. His own cheeks undoubtedly were trying to keep up, for the sudden memory of how it felt to have her hand cupping his ass popped into his head.

“Of course you’d like that,” Jaina said with a roll of her eyes.

“Don’t worry Solo, I give as good as I get.”

It truly was a pity that he couldn’t feel her pulse at the moment; if the look on her face was any indication, it would be racing faster than a dune speeder with its brake lines cut.

Ah, it was good to be the teaser once more.

“What’s wrong, Jaina?” he said. “ Did I hit the right spot?”

Jaina let out a laugh that was obviously forced. “You couldn’t find the right spot with two hands and a map.” Her bravado barely hid the trembling of her voice.

Poe decided that if ever there was a time to go big, it was now.

He tossed his paddle onto the table with a clatter, then made his way slowly around the table, as if Jaina was an animal he didn’t want to spook.

“That sounds an awful lot like a challenge,” he said.

The closer he got, the more he could see that her hands were shaking almost as much as her breath. She set the paddle down and faced him once he was within arms reach.

“What would you do if it was?” she whispered.

Poe froze.

_Shit, shit, shit._

Okay, so even if he had come off all boldness and suavity, at least 70% of him hadn’t actually expected her to react like this. He had been a diver with every intent of braving icy fjords until he had dipped a toe in the water and found it far more warm and welcoming than ever imagined, and had to figure out what to do with all of the seal blubber he’d packed around his body.

Just...fuck metaphors, man.

“I like you,” he burst out.

 _Kriffingshitballsfuck._ If that didn’t make her bolt, he didn’t know what would.

But Jaina, with her large brown eyes and her flushed cheeks and those locks of hair that just begged to be brushed away so he could press his lips against the pale column of her neck, stepped forward and placed her hands on his chest. The heat of her palms seared through his shirt and he swore that for a second, his heart stopped beating. She was barely a breath away. He could smell the warm scent of her skin and the oil stains in her flight suit.

Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth as she licked her lips, then a cloud of concentration passed over her face as if she was trying to figure out her next words.

If Poe understood body language and what it meant when a blushing woman placed her hands on his body with her lips parted and her breath coming fast--which, let’s be honest, he wasn’t exactly a novice at all of this--then where they were going, they didn’t need words.

He leaned forward slowly, giving her ample time to pull away, watching for any flash of hesitation. In response, her hands fisted in his shirt and yanked him the rest of the way down until their lips crashed together.

Kissing Jaina was like entering the heavy atmosphere of a gravity-rich planet. He felt the simultaneous crush of weightlessness and vertigo, and the blast of heat that threatened to consume his surroundings. And when she bounced up to wrap her strong legs around his waist, it was as if partway through that atmospheric descent, he had jumped to lightspeed, without a care for the risk.

She was soft and sweet and perfect against his body. He backed her against the table and without breaking contact, lowered her onto it so she squirmed underneath him, all breathy moans and sharp, quiet cries that heated his blood to boiling. Poe breathed in her sounds and returned them as his own low groans. Her small, powerful fingers dug into his shoulders and ran through his hair, and their tongues danced as if making up for the dance that he had craved last night.

Was this actually happening? Did he really have his hand most of the way up the front of Jaina Solo’s top, and were his fingers brushing the bottom band of her bra? And were her own hands fumbling at the buttons on his pants?

It was with a mote of disappointment that he realized he was about to fuck Jaina on a holo-pong table in a communal lounge. Which had its own merits, by all means, yet he felt somewhat saddened by it.

Poe would freely admit that he had fantasized about being with her in an intimate fashion almost since the first time he saw her. He’d imagined it many times. Some occured after flaming cockpits and daring rescues (on both sides, because hey, Poe could dream of being swept off his feet too); some followed accidental meetings near warm bodies of water (usually one party was without clothes in said water); and a few featured a pair of binders (again, on both sides).

Although some of those imagined moments had been rushed--and truly, something could be said for frantic, frenzied sex--whatever first times he had wished for had always been...sweeter. Nicer. With long moments dedicated to leisurely exploration, communication, and learning. Without the act of putting his hand in a sticky patch on a pockmarked table that he hoped to the stars was just a dried patch of a sugary drink.

“You couldn’t do that elsewhere, could you?” a mechanical, irritated voice said at the doorway.

They lifted their heads so quickly that Jaina nearly headbutted Poe’s chin. She made a valiant attempt to pull down her shirt over his forearm since the tips of his fingers were still pinned underneath the band of her bra.

Poe would have helped, if he wasn’t too busy staring at the humanoid droid and trying to restart his brain. He felt as if he had been pulled out of his cockpit halfway through a barrel roll.

“What’s wrong with here?” he said, breathless. When he finally noticed Jaina’s motions, he withdrew his fingers and tugged her top back in place with not a little annoyance. Fucking droid. He sent a withering glare at the droid but it bounced off of the dull metal body.

“I am K2VB. My protocol states that at 0900 standard hours, my duty is to clean this lounge room.” The droid lifted a grungy mop in demonstration.

Jaina shimmied out from underneath Poe and he suddenly became aware of exactly how hard he had become. She didn’t look at him as she hurried to her computer part. Poe fetched his jacket and held in front of his crotch in what was supposed to be ‘casual swagger’, but only came across as ‘desperately trying to hide a boner in a now uncomfortable situation.’

K8VB looked at Jaina and Poe, then at the table, then back to them, then at its mop and cleaning bucket, then back at the table.

“I...I should to go,” Jaina mumbled and squeezed past an immobile K2VB.

“Wait,” Poe said. Life could be confusing. Battles could be terribly confusing. Making out with Jaina Solo should not, _not_ be confusing. He shoved the droid to the side and caught Jaina’s elbow before she sprinted down the hallway. When she turned to him, her eyes flashed in anger.

What the hell was going on? He could see a thousand thoughts flashing through Jaina’s expression, and he would have given anything to know even one of them.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to overstep.”

“It’s not…” Her mouth opened and closed, then she pulled her elbow from his grasp and bolted.

“Jaina!” Poe cried. She couldn’t leave like this. Not like _this_. He raced after her and was inches from her elbow again when she turned and threw out an arm.

He couldn’t move. His limbs felt like they had been frozen in place and no matter how hard he fought, he couldn’t follow her as she backed away from him. His mind raced back to the last time this had happened: when he had been on Jakku, having just fired a blaster bolt at her brother, right before the First Order had been taken him as a prisoner and tortured his body and mind. Fear burst first in his gut and then spread in micro explosions along his spine.

Almost as quickly as the Force stilled his body, it was gone; the only indication it had ever happened was the look of horror on Jaina’s face.

She brought a hand to her mouth. “Poe…” she said through it. “I’m sorry. Gods, I didn’t mean…”

Jaina must have remembered as well.

He wanted to tell her that it was fine, that he wasn’t shaking and gasping because of _her_ , and as he thought about it, the feel of her powers was surprisingly warm and joyful compared to the painful crush of her brother’s, but before he could say a word, she was gone.

Shi-i-it.

Poe gaped down the hallway and then back at the droid, as if the ennui-filled robot could instill any wisdom as to what the _fuck_ had just happened.

K2VB stared back at him.

“Consider yourself lucky,” it said.

“Excuse me?” Poe snapped at it.

The droid pointed through the doorway at the holo-pong table. “You don’t want to know what I’ve cleaned off of that.”


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a mistake.

That was all.

It had been a mistake to give in to Poe’s flirting, and then to have flirted back, made out, and dry-humped on a pong table.

Just a mistake.

The more she thought about it, the more Jaina realized she wasn’t doing a very good job of convincing herself.

Three days had passed since their encounter in the lounge. Jaina had filled her waking hours with intensive--though not exactly necessary--repairs on her ship, workout sessions in the training room that left her skin drenched and her limbs weak and shaky, and training maneuvers in the empty black of space until someone called her back and scolded her for wasting fuel. Her waking hours were so packed with activity that no space remained for any unwarranted thoughts.

Jaina couldn’t claim the same for her sleeping hours.

In the peaceful landscape of her dreams, he would come to her, and she would let him in. Sometimes more than once. Her own moans jerked her from sleep and she would wake up covered in sweat, grinding against her tangled sheets, and feeling incomplete and immensely frustrated. Each time, her room would be in a state of chaos. At first she had worried that someone had been in her quarters while she slept, yet the next morning, she discovered that it had been her own Force telekinesis gone wild. She had woken from a dream of firm lips, and firmer hands, and even firmer other things, to watch as her alarm cracked itself against the holo-screen on the opposite wall and the doors of her closets rattled open and blasted her clothes across the floor.

It was getting dangerous. Especially after this past night, when her lightsaber had been thrown into a wall socket. The blade hadn’t turned on, thankfully, but the socket was a mess of crunched metal and melted plastic.

Jaina couldn’t have another night like that. She was becoming a hazard to her belongings, to the Resistance’s last heavy flagship, and to everyone on board.

At least that’s what she told herself as she walked down the hallway to Poe’s quarters.

 _That_ was why she was going to see him: to apologize for using her powers on him outside the lounge, and to...discuss what had happened between them.

Discussion. With mouths.

Though mouths could definitely--

_No. Stop it, Jaina._

She was going to Poe’s room to apologize for freezing him in place, and explain that the reason she had bolted had decidedly not been his fault, in hopes that easing her guilt would decrease the tension that was even now settling low in her belly. Nothing good would come of thinking about the innumerable ways Poe could use his mouth on her body. He’d used it so well on her own mouth that he undoubtedly knew how to use it well in other places. Jaina had been with her own share of ignorant partners, and there was something glorious to be said about experience.

And if the Resistance gossip had anything to say about it, Poe Dameron had Experience. With a capital E. It didn’t seem to matter much about gender or species; it was all his playground and his partner’s pleasure.

So thankfully, Jaina was going to his room just to talk.

To _talk_.

Which was why she had put on a clean, stain-free shirt, buffed her boots, and brushed her hair so it lay in dark shining waves over her shoulders. And it was why she had taken a little too long in the ‘fresher with the nicest bar of soap she owned.

If she was going to talk to Poe, she might as well smell nice, right?

Her boots slowed as they faced his door.

Jaina took a deep breath, raised her fist to knock, then jumped backwards as the door hissed open.

“Oh, hey Jaina,” Finn said with a wave.

 _Kriff._ Had something happened with Rose? Had Finn and Poe gotten back together? Was she too late? No, dammit, she was just going to kriffing _talk_ , and if they had gotten back together, then she could always _talk_ , and what was that ‘too late’ bullshit about anyway?

“Um,” she said. “Is, uh, Poe…?”

Finn gave her a broad smile as he scooted around her and into the hallway.

“He just got in the ‘fresher,” he said. Then he seemed to see some expression on Jaina’s face that even she didn’t know she was making.

“I only popped in to borrow a book.” He held up a thin bundle of pages with a faded, tattered cover. “I wanted to impress Rose with dramatic readings of romantic poetry.”

Poe owned poetry? Jaina shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course he would be the kind of person to not only own a paper book of romantic poetry, but to read it over and over again until it the binding gave way. Something deep within her stirred. She shoved that mysterious feeling deeper and gave it a kick.

“I’ll come back later,” Jaina said, and turned to head back down the hallway, but Finn caught her before she started to move.

“Go on in, he won’t mind.”

Jaina didn’t much like the grin on Finn’s face, nor the excitement in his eyes, and she especially didn’t like it when he pushed her through the door and closed it behind her.

“You look nice, by the way!” The metal door muffled Finn’s shout, but she still heard it.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

Her first thought was that Poe’s quarters smelled exactly like him: deep, rich, earthy, a little bit of grease. His flight suit lay in a tangled orange pile in front of the open door to the bathroom. He must have recently come in from training. Over the splash of water, she could hear him humming a slow tune.

Jaina stepped over a stray boot and let her gaze wander aimlessly around the small space. It was clean, but it wasn’t exactly tidy. An old stringed instrument leaned against a corner, his sheets slumped half-off his bed, and his leather jacket draped over the back of a chair. He had a desk, the same size and style as her own, over which hung an uncracked holo-screen. Books lay in haphazard stacks on the surface, and most of them had battered spines like the one he had loaned Finn. On top of one stack lay a leather-corded necklace with a silver ring.

It was a pretty ring, Jaina thought. She stretched out a hand to touch it, but she stopped when Poe began to sing. She twisted around to face the bathroom and gaped.

_“...starlit skies up high. It’s snatching each moment of wishing away. Can you see right through me, my love? What else can I do but ask you to stay…”_

His voice was low and husky and smooth. It echoed off of the bathroom walls and through the open door, and dripped over her like warm molasses. Gods, the man sung like a kriffing angel, if that angel had been in and out of jail and had seen some shit.

Without realizing it, she had walked towards the bathroom and was standing before the open doorway. The water turned off and the enclosing door to the shower snapped open and closed. His song broke off and came back as a faster, jazzier version. She heard the sound of a towel dragging over skin.

What if he walked out of his bathroom naked? He thought he was alone, after all. Jaina couldn’t see that. Well, no, she amended. She couldn’t see that and have a rational conversation with him.  

Jaina coughed loudly. “Poe…?”

The word he sung ratcheted up into a high gurgle. It wasn’t a shriek, but it came close.

His head peeked around the doorframe. Damp hair curled against his forehead, and water droplets glittered on his cheeks and neck. Jaina didn’t think about licking the droplets off. Not at all.

“Hi,” Poe said. Shock and happiness chased each other across his face until he hid them behind a mask of impartiality. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk. About the other day, I mean.”

“Oh, all right.” He paused. “Can I put on some pants first?”

When Jaina nodded, he emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. She tried not to ogle. She really did. It was a full, stalwart effort of keeping her eyes trained on the wall behind him, so it wasn’t _her_ fault that he walked directly into her line of vision, all shirtless and glistening.

She should really stop staring.

Especially at the ridges of his stomach and chest. And especially at the way the muscles on his shoulders and back flexed as he opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of dark brown pants. She noticed with some satisfaction the line of hair that traveled down from his stomach until it disappeared beneath the towel.

And...hold on. She could have sworn that when he’d exited, she hadn’t seen the mouth-watering dip of muscle just above his hips. Had the towel slipped a little farther down? Jaina caught the tail end of Poe’s mischievous smile as he padded back into the bathroom. Yeah, that towel hadn’t slipped lower on accident.

Ass.

Although through the towel, she could see the outline of that, too.

Jaina whirled around and stared at the door. Maybe this had been a bad idea. Her skin prickled all over her body and her head felt too light.

She thought of the decimated socket in her room. No, she needed to stay. For the good of...everyone.

“So, you came by to talk, and to practice your forced entry skills?”

Jaina faced Poe as he emerged from the bathroom once more, roughly toweling his hair. He hadn’t put on a shirt, and was making no moves to do so. The waistband of his pants rode low on his hips. Didn’t he own a belt? Jaina swallowed.

“Finn let me in,” she said.

“Ah.” He slung the towel on a hook and nodded as if that explained everything. “You want a drink?” he said as he reached for a bottle of dark amber liquid.

Jaina barked out a laugh before she could contain it. “Do you really want that? Again?”

“Good point,” Poe said around a chuckle, then put the unopened bottle back on its shelf. “Sit down, at least.” he gestured to his rumpled bed as he lowered himself onto his chair.

Jaina gingerly sat on the edge of the mattress.

“I shouldn’t have held you like that,” she said suddenly. When he raised an eyebrow, she realized how he had taken her words. “That’s not...I mean…”

Jaina rubbed her face. Memories and sensations threatened to bombard her thoughts: his hips held between her thighs, his shoulders held under her palms, his hair held between her fingers.

“I shouldn’t have used the Force on you,” she said before she completely derailed. “In the hallway. It was...wrong of me.”

Poe leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees. “I ran after you. You reacted. There’s nothing to apologize for. But why did you take off like that, Jaina?” His voice was soft and sincere and brushed against her like a bundle of brushed fleece.

She knew the answer to that question. The true answer. It lay buried underneath layers of pride, and she wasn’t quite ready to unearth it. Jaina straightened and lifted her chin.

“We’re both commanders. Superiors. We have to set a good example for--” She blinked at the interruption of Poe’s loud scoff.

“Come on,” he said. The chair creaked as his body thumped against the backrest and he shot her a wry smile. “You know as well as I do that officers and captains fuck around all the time. We’re in a war. People need to feel _something_ , and when a battle might take either of them away without warning, protocols and ‘good examples’ get tossed aside for other things.”

The way he said it, with that telling pause before ‘other things,’ combined with the flick of his gaze to her mouth, made Jaina start thinking about what she would like to toss aside. His cocky expression, for one. Also his pants.

She clenched her jaw as she shoved the thought away.

Poe took a steady breath and ruffled his wet hair. Water droplets scattered against the holo-screen.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you’re going to have to give me a better reason than that. Because what happened, back in that lounge, that wasn’t one-sided. Not at all.”

Jaina could feel the truth bubbling up inside her and banging heavy fists on the insides of her ribs. Her heartbeats echoed in her ears so loudly that she was amazed Poe hadn’t questioned her about it.

“So tell me,” he said, pulling himself out of the chair and making his way to her side. The bed dipped under his weight and nearly rolled her into him.

He was too close. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t think. It was as if she was hurtling through space without a helmet, a flight suit, or a cockpit.

“What happened, Jaina?”

Poe’s voice was the hook that dragged it out of her.

“I felt out of control with you,” she blurted.

The concern vanished from his face, and he looked like he was struggling not to laugh.

Jaina’d had intercourse, sure. She was a free, active, liberated individual who didn’t see one single benefit to that Jedi-celibacy clause other than creating an orgasm-starved army of the sexually-repressed.

But in that lounge, pressing herself against him and literally leaping onto him, without a single care in the galaxy other than needing to be closer--that was new. Brand new.

“Out of control isn’t bad, you know,” Poe finally said. His laugh shone in his brown eyes and in the curl of his lips.

“For me it is!” Jaina said and shot to her feet, then paced across the small room. “When we were...when we had that...thing...in the lounge, I wasn’t in charge of my body anymore.”

“That ‘thing’? You’re going with ‘ _thing’_?” He stretched his arms behind him and leaned on them, smirking.

Yeah, she went with ‘thing.’ ‘Wild dry-humping’ didn’t seem like the right words at the moment. And he still wasn’t taking her seriously, damn him. Jaina stilled her feet and faced him.

“Poe,” she said sternly. “I’m a Jedi. I’ve trained for years to keep a steady, hard rein on my emotions and my actions. I slip up, sometimes. And--oh, dammit, just quit with the eyebrow. I know I slip up sometimes. But never like that. And I can’t have that, because out of control leads to--” Jaina swallowed.

“I can’t be like him.” The words rushed out of her in a slow, soft breath.

Poe didn’t have to ask who she was referring to. When he reached for her hands, she realized that she had wrapped her arms around her ribs like some sort of ineffective protection.

“You’re not like your brother,” he said. The calluses on his palms rubbed against her own. “Not at all.”

“But I could be.”

Poe huffed out a laugh, not taking his eyes off of hers. “I don’t know a whole lot about good and evil, and I know even less about the Force, but I do know that you can’t ever be like him.”

They were having a moment. A real, true, honest moment. With lots of eye contact, and emotions, and feelings laid bare, and like HELL if Jaina was going to let herself get dragged down by the hypnotic feel of his fingers repeatedly brushing over her wrists, or the fresh smell of his skin and his hair, or how his eyes were like two chunks of dark chocolate if that chocolate was being sensitive and caring as fuck, or the fact that he was still half-fucking-naked and she was standing between his spread legs against his kriff-fucking bed.

Poe must have taken her aroused silence for a disbelieving one.

“When you used the Force on me, back in the hallway--” He broke off as Jaina flinched. Despite the current lust-haze, she still felt the stab of guilt.

“No, no, Jaina, listen.” Eyes on her, he shifted to the edge of the bed so that her thighs were nearly at his crotch.

 _Ohgodsohgodswhy_.

“After the first part, which was all shock and a tiny bit of fear--” he stopped and narrowed his eyes at her. “Tiny, _tiny_ bit of fear.”

She couldn’t help but laugh and he smiled at her.

“Once that was over, it felt...good.”

Jaina frowned at him. “Is this some weird variation of Stockholm Syndrome?”

“No! No. Definitely not. Probably not.” Another smile. “It didn’t feel anything like what had happened to me before. When he froze me, I could feel _him_. His anger, and his despair. It was this awful weight. It felt like I was being crushed by a gigantic, angry cactus.”

Jaina snorted. “Poe, you’re a magician with words.”

He inclined his head in a courtly bow. “Why, thank you. That’s not the important part, though.”

“A gigantic, angry cactus sounds important.”

Poe squeezed her hands in gentle chastisement. “Let me say this, please?”

Jaina nodded, and he continued. “With you, I...I felt _you._ There was anger, sure, but it wasn’t hissing in your mind like his, waiting to blow up at any moment. It was quieter and more delicate and woven in with...stuff.”

Poe broke off and dragged a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t know, it all sounded better earlier.”

A little bubble of warmth floated up through Jaina’s body. “You’ve practiced this conversation?”

Poe scowled at her. “No.” He looked at the ceiling. “Not out loud.”

“Well, I think you’re doing great,” Jaina said. He’d let go of her right hand to ruffle his hair, but he still held her left. She let her thumb drift over his knuckles.

“Well anyway,” he said with a grumble, “you felt warm, and soft, and witty. Like being wrapped in silk. Or a fluffy sweater. Or a fluffy sweater made out of silk.” He shook his head. “I’m bad at metaphors, but the point is that it was like I was being held by you. Surrounded by _you_. And I’d say that counts as a good feeling.”

“Oh,” she said, and started to feel a lot less awful about using the Force on him.

“Then you ran from me, which didn’t feel as great.”

“Well that’s because I was coming to terms with not hating you anymore--”

“So you did hate me?” Despair washed over Poe’s face and he dropped the hand he still held.

Jaina snagged both of his hands back. “I _thought_ I hated you. I don't think I ever did, not really. Blame the whole Jedi-guilt-complex, I suppose.”

“I’m not sure if I should be more hurt that you thought you hated me or relieved that you discovered you didn’t.”

Jaina winced. “A little bit of both?”

“For the record, I never thought that I hated you.”

“I know. And...I...think I might like you, too." 

Poe was gazing up at her as if he had a million questions and her face held all the answers.

He took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, but...you gotta know that sometimes, it’s good to be out of control. You could try it, maybe.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “With me. Now. Maybe.”

A maelstrom of thoughts vied for Jaina’s attention: duty to her companions, the gut-blasting responsibility of her position and her place within the galaxy, fear of the future, and above them all, a pool of bubbling lust that made her skin flame and her legs turn to pudding.

The taut rope of her control had frayed in the middle. Perhaps it had been fraying for some time, but the man who currently sawed at it with a hack-blade made her think that perhaps, _perhaps_ it wouldn’t be so bad if it snapped. And if it did, Poe wasn’t the kind of man to stand back and let her plummet.

 _Let go_ , a voice whispered into her head. _For once in your godsdamned life, just let go._

“Poe?”

“Yeah?” His question was gentle and hopeful. “What would you like to do, Jaina?”

“You,” she said.

“Oh,” he mumbled against her lips as she crushed them to his. “Yes, please.”

It was just like before, and it was nothing like before. Poe tasted the same, and smelled the same, and his mouth moved in the same gloriously practiced way, and his arms were just as strong as they wrapped around her and pulled her down to the bed so she lay underneath him.

Yet before, when Jaina had felt the simmering heat rising within her, she had tamped it down and sought to douse it. Now, she let it consume her. It was wonderful.

And nothing exploded. She didn’t feel like murdering anyone. The ever-present lurking Dark Side didn’t sweep in and overthrow her soul; it just sat in its corner, nodded in approval, and gave her a thumbs-up and a ‘Get it, girl.’

When Poe broke from her lips and moved to her neck, she cried out and clutched him closer. Under her hands, his skin was hot and smooth and still slippery from his shower, and she longed to taste it. His lips and tongue kissed sloppy trails from the edge of her jaw down to her collarbone. Words tumbled from her mouth before she could even think about them.

“What?” he said against her skin.

“Take off your pants,” Jaina repeated.

Poe reared back and gave her own body a pointed look, from her buttoned shirt to her laced-up boots. “We’re already uneven. You’re gonna put me at a pretty bad disadvantage.”

With a snarl, Jaina threw out a hand and Forced the boot laces apart, and then Forced her boots off her feet and through air. They smacked against the opposite wall with twin thuds.

Poe stared at the small dents in the metal for a brief moment before turning back to her. His brown eyes were wide with shock.

“Shit, I’m sor--” she started, but Poe interrupted her.

“I shouldn’t be turned on by displays of property damage, should I?” He choked at the beginning, and the rest of his sentence sounded strangled. His appearance backed his words: pupils blown in arousal, parted full lips that were wet and reddened from her barrage. Just looking at those lips made her want them again, and when she acted on that want, Poe didn’t seem to mind.

Together, they wrestled with the buttons on her shirt and it slumped to the floor.

“Take your pants off, Poe,” Jaina said again once he took another journey down her neck. His hands were everywhere, and his mouth followed. Every touch nudged her closer to some perfect moment, and she wanted it all, and she wanted it _now_.

Poe laughed against her sternum. “I thought the Jedi were supposed to be patient.”

And they were, usually, but at the moment, Jaina was excluding herself from most Jedi.

“Take off your pants or I’ll rip them off,” she growled.

“So it wasn’t enough to get blood and vomit on ‘em?”

“That was on the other pants. I haven’t done anything to these ones.”

“What do you have against my wardrobe?”

“That you’re still wearing too much of it.” Jaina fumbled with the fasteners. The backs of her hands pressed against his warm, firm stomach and her breath came out in a faint whimper.

“Nah,” Poe said with a laugh. He shifted lower on the bed so that his hips were out of her reach. “I like that it’s getting you irritated. Think I’ll keep ‘em on for a while.”

Jaina narrowed her eyes at his cocky smirk, then gave him a cocky smirk of her own with a sprinkle of added menace.

Poe’s smirk dimmed a bit.

“I think you should take your pants off, Poe,” Jaina practically purred.

“No,” Poe said, although he seemed slightly less certain about it.

Jaina reached into the Force and found his body, then pinned it in place with a flex of her fingers. She did so gently, delicately, watching his face for any signs of discomfort.

The noise Poe made was part surprised grunt, part satisfied moan. It rocketed down her spine and settled between her thighs as a warm, tingling pulse.

The sensation of holding Poe was as if she had grown an infinite number of hands and had lain them all over his body--she could sense the warmth of his skin as vividly as she could feel the strain of his muscles and the pounding of his heart. In the hallway outside of the lounge, she had felt this as well, but instead of the burst of his fear and shock, there was the low spark of excitement.

“I guess I’ll have to take them off myself,” Jaina said. She meant to sound sultry and powerful, but it came out so melodramatic that she giggled. Poe’s lips twitched and he gave her a look that said, ‘Well, if you insist.’

With the Force, she maneuvered him so that he lay on his back with his calves swinging down from the edge of the bed. Her hold on his body was still light and gentle, but when she felt him push back--probing, curious, testing--she tightened it.

“Gaahhfuuck, why does that feel so good?” Poe gasped.

Jaina stood and removed her clothes, not even bothering with any semblance of modesty. “I bet if you lie back and think about it for a while, the answer will come to you.”

“I can’t even think about a good double entendre response to that,” Poe said. His eyes scrunched closed and his head tipped back against the mattress. “And you know what?” he muttered. “I don’t care.”

Jaina’s hand hovered over the clasp of his pants, and when he looked up at her, she flicked the top button.

“Yes?” she said.

“Yes,” he groaned, and then nodded, as if wanting to be absolutely clear.

Being out of control was pretty great, Jaina decided once she dragged Poe’s pants onto the floor. She didn’t have to think, didn’t have to worry, didn’t have to focus on anything other than the now naked man sprawled in front of her. So she could, in a sense, sit back and relax. Or at least her mind could. _She_ didn’t. Quite the opposite, actually.

It was a jumble, but a delicious jumble. She basked in his soft noises and ragged gasps, at the gentle touch of his hands against her head, at the way that somehow, he managed to wriggle from her hold and switch with her so she lay on the bed, his thick hair brushing her thighs.

Jaina had said earlier that Poe couldn’t find the right spot with two hands and a map, and she was almost positive that he remembered the comment, because he seemed to be intent on disproving it. It was a rational, well-thought out silent argument, and it won her over her immediately.

Poe most definitely didn’t need a map. Or hands. Just a few fingers and his mouth. With those alone, he could rule the galaxy.

Jaina would never tell him that, of course. He’d just get cockier.

At the practiced press of his fingers, her body tensed and shuddered. That lovely tingle, the one that heralded only the best orgasms, buzzed in her toes and trickled up her legs, and as she arched her back and closed her eyes...almost...

Poe lifted his head and Jaina’s eyes shot open.

She almost screamed in frustration. “Why?” she cried, the word sounding like a curse.

“I just realized something,” he said with a smile.

“ _What_?”

His eyebrow quirked. “If you hadn’t been so stubborn, we could have been doing this for months.”

“Shut _up_ , Poe,” Jaina panted, then snaked her hands through his hair and pulled his head back down between her legs. It was just as satisfying as she had imagined it to be.

 _She_ was the stubborn one? Really?

Yeah, okay, fine. It was completely true. But of all the times to point it out, this one ranked slightly after ‘chained together and dangling over a pit of lava.’ Jaina pushed those thoughts aside and desperately searched for that tingle again.

Poe crooked one finger. _Oh_. There it was. It grew and grew, and her legs trembled, and her fingers dug into Poe’s scalp and…

Poe lifted his head and this time, Jaina really did scream in frustration.

“And also--” he started, but Jaina had had enough.

“NGH!” she said and flipped him onto the bed with the Force, then scrambled up his body so she hovered over his face.

“Poe!” Jaina said. “Shut! Up!”

He had no choice, after that. He couldn’t talk if he wanted to, and if he tried, she couldn’t hear a single muffled word.

The tingle came back quickly, and soon enough, Jaina toppled sideways onto the mattress, sweaty and panting and infinitely less frustrated.

And yeah, what followed wasn’t perfect. But it didn’t have to be, did it? For every blissful melding of mouths there was a moment of accidental headbutting and cursing. Impassioned, sensual nibbles were mixed with uncontrolled, wild bites that resulted in startled yelps and red welts. Whispered breaths of ‘More,’ and ‘Yes,’ and ‘Oh Gods,’ were alternated with squeaks of ‘Slower!’ and ‘Agh, neck spasm,’ and ‘Waitwaitwait!’

At one point, Poe’s hips rocked into her with such exquisite tenderness that she didn’t notice they were about to fall off of the bed until they actually fell off the bed. In hindsight, it probably would have been a good idea to _not_ fuck on the short, rough carpet, but the scrapes on Jaina’s knees and Poe’s back wouldn’t last forever. And that’s what bacta was for, right?

At last, they lay sprawled on the bare mattress. Breath came heavy and slow as their sweat cooled. The bedding was somewhere, but Jaina couldn’t bring herself to wonder about it.

Poe pushed himself to his elbows. “Two hands and a map,” he said with a scoff and patted the curve of her hip.

Yep, he remembered.

“I’m convinced in your skills,” Jaina murmured into the bedding. Her brain was mush, her body was boneless, and every inch of her skin popped and fizzled like children’s firecrackers.

“Really? Already?” He blinked dark fringed lashes at her. “I was hoping you’d need much more time to be convinced.” His fingers trailed from her hip to the slope of her belly. “Hours.” The word was low and full of promise. “Days.”

“Days?”

Poe nodded gravely. “Who knows? It might even take years.”

Jaina bit back a grin.

“Then you’d better get started, Dameron.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading this ridiculously niche fiction!  
> It was a blast to write. I always love comments, so leave 'em here!  
> Yay star-porn!


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